#TOOD (The Opposites Of Dry) --- SynTalk

Are bones dry? Is blood sticky? Are cells ‘rough’? Do dead cells dry up? Are stiffer (cancer) tumours more dangerous? Would stickiness on another planet be a tell-tale sign of the presence of Life? Does the act of adding and/or removing parts make things imperfect. Therefore, are all engineered artifacts rough? Does wettability depend upon both materials? Why do cells jiggle inside the matrix? Are all living environments aqueous? Can the architecture of blood vessels or cells be mathematically modeled? Is context everything? Why do some materials refuse to stick to another? How does one make something slippery or sticky? Do dryness and roughness go together? How does a wound heal itself, & how ‘heterogeneous’ is the seal? Is surface tension a competition between cohesion and adhesion? Do cells have ‘feet’ to crawl and feel? Are there many ways of sticking? How do cancer cells survive elsewhere? Does the rigidity or fluidity of membranes impact the signaling processes themselves? Can there be a master glue that sticks everything? Do all bio-molecules multitask? Might all interfacial interactions (such as adhesion) be understood via electrical impulses? Will cyborgs of the future get cancer? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from cell biology (Dr. Nagaraj Balasubramanian, IISER, Pune), & mechanical engineering (Prof. Suman Chakraborty, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur). Listen in…